SUNY Fredonia Fights to Keep Controversial Professor Off Campus

August 18, 2023 1 min read

Jessica Blake
Inside Higher Ed

Excerpt: A year and a half after Stephen Kershnar, a polarizing philosophy professor at SUNY Fredonia, was barred from the campus and relegated to teaching online courses, university officials are still intent on keeping him out.

The university’s lawyer argued last Friday during a federal district court hearing on a lawsuit filed by Kershnar against the State University of New York at Fredonia president and provost that Kershnar’s controversial past comments about pedophilia—which included his questioning whether “adult-child sex” is always wrong—make it impossible for him to return to campus without posing a risk to students and faculty and staff.

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